Information and Lobbying for the Community Media Sector

Menu

CMFE Member: Red de Medios Comunitarios (ReMC, Spain)

Young people at Almenara Community Radio, Madrid

The ReMC was born with the mission “to promote and defend Human Rights and the democratic principles contained in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, with special reference to freedom of expression and the Right to Communication as fundamental rights for the exercise and development of other rights “, as it appears in its statutes (ReMC, 2009).

ReMC Board 2018

The ReMC is a space that brings together, coordinates and defends the aims of a variety of media, initiatives and communication practices within the so-called Third Sector of Communication (AMARC, 2008) in Spain. Our activity began in 2005 promoted by various community radio and television projects but we legally constituted as an associations on May 24, 2009.

Defending the right to communicate

Since its creation in 2009, we have worked in the institutional and legal field in the promotion and defense of the right to communication of citizens. Although at first the General Law of Audiovisual Communication (2010) could have been a legal recognition to community radios that, for years, have been considered pirate radios, in practice alternative media are seeing their ability diminished to communicate and, six years later, the vast majority of community media in Spain have not obtained a broadcast license, despite the fact that many opted for its concession on numerous occasions. That is why the most outstanding activity of the ReMC since its inception has been “the promotion of the Third Sector of Communication as a public service of general interest, and the demand for a public communication space to guarantee its existence and development” (REMC 2009) being linked to the legal and political action, control and supervision of the different regulations and licensing competitions that the autonomous communities have been publishing.

Second, within the objectives of the ReMC is the need to deepen the democratization of society and its media, promoting free expression, the dissemination of ideas, opinions and information of all people and groups through of any means. Defending the right to communicate also implies favoring the necessary conditions for this, especially working in a network with the third sector media, but also with associations of journalists and users of communication and with universities, researchers and entities from the Third Sector. society.